Boston

As I write this, a few hours after learning of the tragedy in Boston today, I am beside myself with grief. If that’s what this feeling is, in fact. I feel like I’m full of emotion and devoid of it, all at the same time. There’s a piece of me that longs to be in Boston, longs to be a part of the tragedy in some way. Mostly I just want to be there and be in the same space with people in need.

I want to pray and send healing energy. I think, Maybe I need to find a healing energy meditation. Or maybe I just need to focus some healing energy toward Boston in my meditation today. Or maybe I’ll just create a meditation of my own for others to do the same.

I want to say something meaningful, profound, but all I have are meaningless words without emotion and heartfelt emotion without words.

My heart is breaking for those who went out for a run today and ended up in the hospital or worse. My heart is breaking for those who went to support someone they love and ended up dead or in the hospital. My heart is breaking for those who were set to finish just prior to the four-hour-and-ten-minute mark and could not escape the blast. My heart is breaking for those who finished just minutes before that mark and those who would have finished just minutes after, and will likely wonder, “What if?” or “Why not me?” for the rest of their lives.

I think that would be me. I would replay the events over and over in my mind and try to find the alternate ending.

I would wonder why them and not me. I seem to always wish it to be me. I know I can handle it. I’ve survived so much already that I know I can survive anything. I don’t know if I can speak publicly without trembling, but I know that I could survive a missing limb. Could I?

That’s difficult for me to reconcile right now, but that is how I feel.

There is nothing I can do to change the tragic events of this morning, and my heart aches because of it.

I want to be consoled by old episodes of Friends with two twin towers standing tall in the skyline. I want to remember my life before there was tragedy, but I doubt I can remember that far back. Not because my life has been so tragic, but the reality is that there has always been tragedy in life and there will always be. There has always been violence, and there always will be.

I feel resigned to that fact, and so very saddened by it. Surely this is not how life was meant to be. But then, how was life meant to be?

Were we meant to run races and get mowed down by explosions as we near the finish line? To be caught off guard as we watch in awe of someone’s will and determination to accomplish a feat that, for many, takes half a year and hundreds of miles of training? To simply cause havoc in the lives of others? To see if you can kill? To see if you’re capable of hurting someone? To see if you’ll get caught? Why are there always people in the world who have been so hurt by society or whatever it is that hurts them that they cannot do anything but hurt someone else? I just don’t understand this.

I wrote in my journal shortly after learning what happened, “I think some of this will end up in my blog today.”

As I think about why some if it has, I think about that whole authenticity thing I talk about so much.

We are not here to simply show that we have something to teach. We are not here to pretend we’ve got it all figured out. We are not here to only share once we’ve learned whatever lesson there is to learn.

Honestly, I don’t know why we’re here. Us, as a collective people, I mean. I only know that we are a collective people. We are human. And in our humanness, we are social. Social beings that need to feel connected to one another.

In the wake of this tragedy, I realize that just because I wasn’t there doesn’t mean I don’t feel connected to those who were.

I want people to know that sometimes words are not enough and that all the way over here in California, I am hurting too. Not because I was crossing the finish line, but because I am human.

This is the kind of thing that brings people together. Makes us stronger because we know that there is more to life than differing opinions about love and life and religion and sexuality. There is the human spirit. I don’t quite know how to say what I’m feeling right now, but I want those people who are going through this tragedy to know that they are not alone.

I want them to know that we may never be able to make sense of the tragedy, but their survival is to be honored. And here I am, trying to sound like I know something, when in reality I’m just trying to figure it out like everyone else.

I’m human. i just want to be a part of humanity. We are a social species, after all.

We are connected by the simple honor of being human.

Nothing more, nothing less.

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If you’d like to participate in sending healing energy to those affected by the explosions at the Boston Marathon today [April 15, 2013], join me in meditation. Every day this week I’ll be starting this five-minute meditation at 11:45AM to send healing energy across the country to those in need. Feel free to use my meditation (downloadable from SoundCloud), use your own, or just sit in silence.